Friday, 28 March 2014

UK spends £250k on royal letters row

http://edition.presstv.ir/TextOnly/detail.aspx?id=356359
UK spends £250k on royal letters row
Fri, 28 Mar 2014 16:18:00 GMT
The UK government has spent more than a quarter of a million pounds in legal fees to prevent the publication of letters written by Prince Charles to British politicians.
UK’s attorney general, Dominic Grieve, said that eight government departments have so far spent some £274,480 on barristers and other lawyers over the past four years in a bid to block the release of the letters.
Grieve was forced to reveal the government cost following a parliamentary question by Labor MP Paul Flynn on the issue.
"This denial of information by government is a sinful waste of public money. If there is something in the letters that suggests Prince Charles will be a poor monarch, then his future subjects have a right to know,” said Flynn.
This comes as three senior judges in a Court of Appeal overruled on March 12 an earlier decision by Grieve to use his ministerial veto to block the release of the correspondence.
The judges said Grieve’s veto was unlawful and incompatible with EU law and the royal letters could be revealed to the public.
Grieve had argued that he used his veto power as the contents of the letters threaten to damage the prince’s political neutrality and create constitutional problems.
This is while critics fear that the Price of Wales could be taking advantage of his royal status to impose his controversial political views on the British government.
Prince Charles has been writing letters, known as the “black spider” memos, for several years to British politicians expressing his views on public issues.
The letters were addressed to ministers in the Cabinet Office and the departments responsible for business, health, schools, environment, culture and Northern Ireland